Sunday, June 29, 2008

Iran says Bushehr Nuclear Plant to go online in October

29/ 06/ 2008TEHRAN, June 29 (RIA Novosti) - The Bushehr nuclear power plant being built in Iran will be launched in October, a high-ranking Iranian nuclear official said on Sunday.Russia is building the $1-billion facility, Iran's first nuclear power plant, in the south of the country in accordance with a 1995 contract, and under UN supervision as Iran is under international scrutiny over its compliance with the nuclear non-proliferation regime."The work for the physical launch of the Bushehr NPP will begin at the end of Mehr [a month under the Iranian calendar that lasts from September 22 to October 21]," Ahmad Fayazbakhsh, deputy head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, said.The Bushehr project was originally scheduled for commissioning at the end of 2006, but the date has been postponed several times.The project was originally started by Germany's Siemens in 1975, but work stopped following the 1979 Islamic Revolution.Russia delivered its final and eighth fuel shipment to Bushehr on January 28, supplying a total of 82 metric tons of low-enriched uranium to the light-water nuclear power plant.